Oldboy

A Seoul businessman, after a night of drinking, disappears. Oh Dae-su finds himself in a room very similar to a motel room – a bed, a TV – but with a hole in the door through which his food is slid in, much like a jail cell. Periodically he’s gassed. The TV serves as his only contact with the world. He learns that he is wanted for the murder of his wife. He stays in this room, with no human contact for a year, then two, then three…. Finally, fifteen years later he is released, without any explanation of who had done this to him or why. He wants revenge.

There have been many films about revenge. Kill Bill Vols. 1 & 2 have something of the same feel about them as Oldboy. A terrible injustice has been done, but why? Just like the Tarentino films, there are loads of fights and lots of gore. Even some of the non-violent scenes have their share of gore, such as eating a live squid in a sushi bar (apparently not unheard of in Korea.)

The story is filled with twists and turns – so many that to describe the plot would either be useless or would tell too much. A great deal of the fun of the film is the discoveries as they unfold. By the end, though, we have met one of the most amoral characters in film.

The theme of vengeance is central to this film. Dae-su’s search for vengeance is the engine that drives much of the film. But in time we discover that there is another level of vengeance that has created the entire situation. Those two struggles for retribution battle against each other – first one, then the other getting the advantage.

The film, though, is not only focused on the seeking of vengeance, but also the lack of satisfaction and the futility of vengeance once it is achieved. The films ends with both sides getting some measure of the revenge they sought, but also suffering tremendously at the hand of the other. In some ways each can claim a victory, but in a fuller picture, both have been utterly defeated.

Too often, that is the case when we seek vengeance – whether it is on a personal level or on a geopolitical level. The injuries we have endured cry out for us to do something to avenge ourselves. But in the process of seeking that vengeance, we are likely to lose as much ourselves as those we seek vengeance upon. It becomes a cycle of revenge going back and forth until all participants and those around them are destroyed.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus spoke of retaliation: You have heard that was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.� But I say to you…if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. Mohandas Gandhi said: An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

In Oldboy we see just how terrible the seeking of an eye for an eye can be. (A tooth for a tooth takes on special meaning in this film – but I promised I wouldn’t tell you about those plot points.)